Concrete Soup and 2 x 4 Salad

I grow testy when folks claim logic, reason, and rationality as the exclusive turf of atheists. Frankly, it offends me, particularly since the assertion is often tucked into one of those “since everyone knows” feints. It carries a whiff, if not the outright stench, of alleged superior intellect.

I’m offended because lots of smart people love God. Lots of highly-educated people love God. (I have met plenty of ignorant atheists, too, but let’s not go there.)

Key PointTwo: I studied a social science (as opposed to, say, art history–a fine courses of study in its own right, but not a science).

So here’s the thing: logic, science, and rationalism pertain to the natural world. Scientific inquiry (or at least the capacity for it) is a gift from God that we use to understand the world He created.All the laws of nature pertain to that natural realm.

God, of course, is supernatural. So when someone tells me, for example, that it is “impossible” that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, or “it couldn’t have happened” that the Red Sea parted for Moses and the Israelites, I smile. God is not bound by the laws of nature; He wrote them. Whether an action or event is logical or “scientific” doesn’t apply. The very essence of a miracle is this:

It makes as much sense to judge God’s works by the measure of whether they conform to natural law as it does to as evaluate the quality of building materials by their nutritional content.

In fact, I believe the Christian biologist, the Christian geologist, the Christian mathemetician—the scientist (of any particular discipline) who is also a Christian–might be the more thorough investigator. Here’s why: So far as I know, you can’t prove a negative. Therefore, it logically follows that one cannot prove that God does not exist or that God no longer exists. So, the scientist who refuses to recognize that God created the world (or at least could have created the world)–and left His fingerprints all over it in the process–rejects, a priori, one crucial source of explanation, of information, of understanding. And that is the scientist’s goal, isn’t it? To advance our understanding?

If you wanted to understand The Old Guitarist, you would study Picasso, right? After all, he created it. So if you want to understand our world, well … you study planet Earth and the One who created it.

This, my friends, is logic.

Next time you hear someone complaining that it isn’t “rational” or “logical” to keep faith in God, grant a little grace. Your poor interlocutor, as we have seen, is trapped in a logical error.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!Psalm 111:10 (ESV)

[*For the sake of this argument, here are my academic credentials:

B.A., University of California, San Diego Summa cum Laude with high honors in anthropology; minor in literature, writing emphasis

M.A., University of California, Los Angeles, anthropology

Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, anthropology. Major support from aNational Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, a competitive, merit-based award that ” …recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions.”]

Meet Sheila

Sheila Seiler Lagrand, Ph.D., earned her doctorate in anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. As an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego, she studied anthropology and literature with an emphasis in writing. But her dad would tell you that she's been writing since she was big enough to hold a pencil.
Sheila has contributed to several edited volumes. Her Christmas story, Kathi Macias' 12 Days of Christmas: Volume 8: Yankee Doodle Christmas, released in December of 2013. In October of 2014, her serialized novel, Remembering for Ruth, based on the characters of Yankee Doodle Christmas, released. Sheila also worked on a collaborative romance novel, The San Francisco Wedding Planner, just for fun. Her essay, "Strip Tease" appears in Soul Bare, edited by Cara Sexton and releasing in fall, 2016 from InterVarsity Press. Currently she is working on a book about family relationships across multiple generations.